Saying goodbye to my 10 year old harbor freight gauges and vacuum pump. Spent over $2k on these bad boys
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Pcmaker
1 - 20 of 29 Posts
Never, why?
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5,124 Posts
Why didn’t you buy from TrueTechTools w/discount, and Supplyhouse.com? I just retooled with much of the same stuff this spring and got the best pricing between the two
I've never ordered tools there before, but the prices look about the same to me. I don't have any discount there.
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15,127 Posts
TruTechTools accepts discount codes from lots of podcasts and groups. I think they’re all 8%.
HVAC School, Building Science w/Bill Spohn, HVAC 2.0
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54,330 Posts
Then stop getting top of the line tools. It doesn’t make you a better tech.
Digital gauges are not a good investment until you know how to do SH & SC.
Why a recovery machine and 1 small bottle? Your employer supplies those.
That one's only for personal use. Vevor tanks are not DOT certified
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54,330 Posts
If used in a shop thats OK. If its in your truck with pressure on it, its not OK
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6,240 Posts
The SMAN380V manifold has a vacuum gauge built-in, so why buy a separate CPS vacuum gauge?
I don't get this fascination everyone seems to have with buying all these core tools and oversized hoses and whatnot for pulling a vacuum on a residential system. I can understand it on large commercial, but it seems like overkill for residential. For years I used a 1.2cfm Robinair vacuum pump for residential and it pulled down plenty fast enough.
I don't get this fascination everyone seems to have with buying all these core tools and oversized hoses and whatnot for pulling a vacuum on a residential system. I can understand it on large commercial, but it seems like overkill for residential. For years I used a 1.2cfm Robinair vacuum pump for residential and it pulled down plenty fast enough.
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33,565 Posts
Because before I bought oversized hoses, core removers, and all that stuff I never once saw a system hold at 500 microns. Also the micron gauge on the SMan manifold is positioned between the two valves so it's not connected to the system when you close the two valves to do a vacuum decay test.
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6,240 Posts
Ok, so now the extra gauge makes sense.
I do if you have a question that I might be able to answer.
I agree that on residential installs it’s overkill because you can start the pump, finish up other stuff while the pump is running so there’s no real wasted time.
A lot of us do refrigeration circuit service repairs (which is really where vcrts and big hoses are worth their weight in gold) as well as work on light commercial, commercial and industrial equipment, so it’s not overkill to save time because time is money.
I've never tried the large diameter hoses for vacuuming, to be honest I rarely even bother removing the valve cores. Does it really reduce the vacuuming time that much for small/medium commercial systems? We rarely work on systems with sufficient volume to warrant it and on the odd occasion we do I've always just used two separate vacuum pumps, one on each side of the system.
I'd love to get one of those Fieldpiece cordless vac pumps, I like the idea of oil change on the fly and not having to find power points to plug into. I love well made tools and I wish I could warrant spending the kind of money to import one but my 25 year old Yellow Jacket and my 25 year old Thermal Engineering vacuum pumps both still work as good as the day I bought them.
I'd love to get one of those Fieldpiece cordless vac pumps, I like the idea of oil change on the fly and not having to find power points to plug into. I love well made tools and I wish I could warrant spending the kind of money to import one but my 25 year old Yellow Jacket and my 25 year old Thermal Engineering vacuum pumps both still work as good as the day I bought them.
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33,565 Posts
It reduces my vacuum time on residential refrigerators from infinite because it will never reach the target to under 2 hours.
On residential AC installs it knocks vacuum time to under 2 minutes.
If you’re actually using a micron gauge and not just leaving the pump on for some predetermined amount of time then yes it will significantly reduce evacuation time. I’d say by 75% on average for repair work.
New install is negligible because like I said earlier, there’s other stuff to do anyway so speeding the evacuation up 30 minutes isn’t really saving any time. Average time to get below 500 microns on a new install with big hoses and core tools is about 2 minutes.
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